UChicago Medicine will open a 130,000-square-foot multispecialty care center in Crown Point, Ind., on April 29.
The $121 million, two-story facility will be the health system's first freestanding center in Northwest Indiana.
Based on a market assessment, UChicago found that about 15% of patients in Northwest Indiana travel outside the region for care, with about one in five of that group visiting the system's facilities in and around Chicago.
"We're excited to bring the forefront of medicine to people in Northwest Indiana who would otherwise have to travel long distances to access highly specialized care," Blase Polite, MD, UChicago's physician-in-chief for Northwest Indiana, said in a news release. "We look forward to joining the community and collaborating with local providers who have patients that can benefit from our services."
The multispecialty center will be UChicago's largest offsite location. It will employ about 200 people and is expected to record 110,000 patient visits a year.
It will feature an eight-bed emergency department, an eight-bed inpatient unit and an ambulatory surgery center. Various adult and pediatric specialty services will be offered, including:
- Infusion therapy, radiation and medical and surgical oncology for cancer patients
- MRI, CT, PET, X-ray and ultrasound imaging capabilities
- Laboratory services
- Access to advanced treatments through UChicago clinical trials
UChicago Medicine Crown Point builds on a network of smaller specialty care medical offices the health system has been operating in the region in Merrillville, Munster and Schererville, Ind.
"We see this as an opportunity to establish a strong partnership with the local health system and to serve area residents, many of whom have been UChicago Medicine patients for years," Dr. Polite said.